The Yuga : Sri Aurobindo: When in His cosmic circling movement He establishes some stable worldwide harmony, that is man’s Satya Yuga. When harmony falters, is maintained with difficulty, not in the nature of men, but by an accepted force or political instrument, that is his Tretā. When the faltering becomes stumbling & the harmony has to be maintained at every step by a careful & laborious regulation, that is his Dwāpara. When there is disintegration, & all descends in collapse & ruin, nothing can stay farther the cataclysm that is his Kali. This is the natural law of progress of all human ideas & institutions. It applies always in the mass, continually though less perfectly in the detail. One may almost say that each human religion, society, civilisation has its four Ages. For this movement is not only the most natural, but the most salutary…. If each Satya has its Kali, equally does each Kali prepare its Satya. Destruction is necessary for new creation, & the new harmony, when it is perfected, will be better than the old; it is therefore more profitable for us to discover & help what He is building.... For in the Kali too, say the secret & ancient traditions of the Yogins, there is a perpetual minor repetition of Satya-Tretā-Dwāpara-Kali subcycles, the subSatya a temporary & imperfect harmony which in the subTreta & subDwapara breaks down & disappears in the subKali…. Already ended are the first five thousand years of the Kali which were necessary to prepare for final destruction the relics of the ancient Satya. Weakness & violence, error & ignorance & oblivion rushing with an increasing speed & rhythm over the whole earth have done for us that work. The morning of the first Kali-Satya is ready to break, the first few streaks dimly visible. So runs the not incredible tradition. [Vide CWSA vol.12:56-57; s/a SABCL Vol3:452-53]
... "republic" à la Megasthenes, which we, on the suggestion of the Yuga-Purāna, assumed to divide the Kānvas from the Śungas - unless we could call the last 45 years of the latter dynasty's rois fainéants a "republic" in relation to this dynasty. What about the "republic" still earlier of Megasthenes, which, again on the strength of the Yuga-Purāna, we put between the Śungas and the Mauryas? Here too... him has provided us with an astonishing detailed parallel to the historical vision we can ascribe to the most ancient pundits of the Purānas from the extant versions of these writings, including the Yuga-Purāna section of the Gārgi-Sarhhitā. One of the most impressive features is the number of kings - 153 or 154 - Megasthenes counts between Alexander or Sandrocottus on the one hand and, on the other... between him and them. The Purānas reckon these dynasts as Magadhan monarchs and we have Purānically accorded them 412 years in all. After them we have traced, on the basis of both Megasthenes and the Yuga-Purāna section of the Gārgi-Samhitā, an interval of 75 years in Magadha, during which period - called a "republic" by the Greek annalist - Page 336 the republican Lichchhavi ...
... exhibiting an independent tradition." It would be no wonder if Megasthenes received information from it. And the Yuga-Purāna speaks of breaks in the dynastic series of Māgadha. Mankad 3 writes: "Usually the Purānas say that the Śungas came immediately after the Mauryas... The Yuga-Purāna...is unequivocal in saying that there was a period of foreign rule between the Mauryas and the Śungas... time-honoured Yuga-mathematics." Our reply in brief has to be that when so much proof has been shown of the Purānic origin of the Greek information the sole course open to us is to take the Yuga-mathematics as foreign to the ancient editions of the Purānas. In the opinion of Pusalker, 1 the earlier versions which existed at the period of the Bhārata War and even those at the time of M... Megasthenes were different from the extant ones which have come down with inflation, omission, emendation and contamination during the last 2000 years and more. We may suggest that the Yuga-mathematics found a place 1. Studies in the Epics and Purānas of India, Introduction, p. lxvi. Page 126 in the Purānas after Megasthenes had derived his information from them. ...
... action in the world, but at cessation from the world-existence. For that he found the eightfold Path a necessary preparatory discipline and so proclaimed it. It [ Ahimsa ] had nothing to do with the Yuga [ at the time of Buddha ], but with the path towards liberation found by Buddha. There are many paths and all need not be one and the same in their teaching. Destruction in itself is neither ...
... I'll have to infer that Buddha's doctrine of Ahimsa was the only one needed by the then Yuga. This Yuga needs another, so the doctrine has to be changed or set aside. It had nothing to do with the Yuga, but with the path towards liberation found by Buddha. There are many paths and all need not be one and the same in their teaching. When yesterday you gave the example of Rama and the Golden Deer ...
... ritual, Shastra, external appliances to maintain the failing internal spirituality; danam, and therefore hospitality, liberality, the sacrifice and the dakshina begin to swallow up other dharmas—it is the yuga yajniya,—the age of sacrifice; bhoga, and therefore the Veda Page 478 is used for procuring enjoyment in this world and the next, bhogaishwaryagatim prati. Vishnu incarnates as the lawgiver ...
... Krishna himself was known by most as a man—only a few worshipped him as the Divine. Yuge yuge 3 may be used in a general sense, as in English "from age to age" and not refer technically to the yuga proper according to the Puranic computation. But the bahūni has an air of referring to very numerous lives especially when coupled with tava ca . In that case all these many births could not be ...
... KRISHNA'S DEATH To round off our chronology in terms that are prominent in the Indian tradition we should arrive at an estimate of the epoch in which the Bhārata War was fought and in whose wake the Yuga traditionally designated Kali commenced, essentially marked by the death of Krishna who had been the centrally determinative figure in that critical carnage. We have fastened on the last quarter ...
... into the silence of Nirvana. Not so easy to do it as to write it. However, what shall I hear from the mighty pen as a remedy to my chronic despair and impatience? Now look here, as to the Yuga, etc., if I can be patient with you and your despairs, why can't you be patient with the forces? Let me give you a "concrete" instance. X is a sadhak of whom it might be said that if anyone could ...
... Aurobindo set before Mrinalini, a girl of eighteen years at that time. Today this ideal has undergone a tremendous change, has turned a somersault, so to say. Woman demands equality with man. This is the Yuga-dharma. Of course, Sri Aurobindo does not mean that any and every husband has to be accepted as a god. He had Page 6 also spoken of woman being subjected to the yoke of man's tyranny. ...
... the name of the last Avatar who comes on a white winged horse to destroy the 'barbarians' ( yavan ) at the end of the Iron Age or the Kali Yuga , which is the period we are now passing through. His appearance marks the return of the Age of Truth, or the Satya Yuga . 9.7.59 Kalki Page 323 ...
... away from the society of the bullock and the ass." Traditionally, however, a Creation consists of four cycles, each again comprising four 'yugas' or ages. Between two yugas there is a twilight period. A cycle starts with Truth in its fullness, the Satya Yuga or the Age of Gold. The Treta comes next, when the degradation has begun and the age has lost one third of the Truth. It is followed by ... will become almost like the Shudra [labourers]. . . . But notwithstanding all these defects, the great virtue of the Kali Yuga is that the spiritual progress man accomplishes with great, ascetic efforts in the Satya Yuga he can accomplish with very little effort in the Kali Yuga." 2.Some Puranas put the durations respectively as 4800, 3600, 2400, 3600, 2400 and 1200 years of the gods. One god-year... down to four and a half cubits in Kali. Sri Aurobindo 1.The Vishnu Purana, which was recorded in about the third century A.D., says many other interesting things about the Kali Yuga: "In the Kali Yuga, the kings will not take care of their subjects, and yet they will steal riches from their subjects on the pretext of collecting taxes. People will be haunted by famine, taxes and sickness ...
... service, the Indian society "spared him the tax of self-denial, the tax of blood and the tax of his riches." Down the stream of Time travelled Sri Aurobindo. In the Age of Truth, Satya Yuga (or Krita Yuga), the kingdom of God and the Veda were in the hearts of His people, Sri Aurobindo explained. There was no need of law, government, castes, classes and creeds. People's nature was pure and they... "The end of a stage of evolution is usually marked by a powerful recrudescence of all that has to go out of the evolution," to quote Sri Aurobindo. The battle is fiercest in Kali-yuga because Kali ushers in a new Satya Yuga. A new Age of Truth. "The seed of dawn sleeps in the heart of dusk." At any rate, although the system of the four castes was well established, it did not count as an obstacle... character and training were expected from all who held authority in the affairs of the people. In the event, given the almost infinite sweep of time, it should not surprise us that at the end of Satya yuga, man's memory Page 378 of his origin had dimmed. That is why in the Treta people needed a prop for their memory. Therefore was written down the law, the Veda. It was used simply as ...
... the word यमः applied to the single god of Dharma, Yama. There is an echo of this use in the Vishnu Purana when it is said that Vishnu is born in the Satya Yuga as Yajna, in the Treta as the Chakravarti Raja, in the Dwapara as Vyasa. In the Satya Yuga mankind is governed by its own pure, perfect and inborn nature spontaneously fulfilling the dharma under the direct inspiration of God within as Yajna... [1] RV I.1 The Rigveda Translated into English with an etymological reconstruction of the Old Sanscrit or Aryan tongue in which it was rendered in the Dwapara Yuga and an explanation of the Yogic phenomena and philosophy with which it is mainly concerned. [word] - word(s) omitted by the author or lost through damage to the manuscript that are required by grammar... adjective हित. यज्ञस्य. This word is of the utmost importance in the Veda. Its subsequent meaning of sacrifice has overclouded the sense of the Scriptures ever since the later half of the Dwapara Yuga; but originally and in the age of Madhuchchhanda it had no shade of this meaning. It is the root यज् with the suffix न adjectival, as explained under अग्नी. यज् is a primary derivative from the initial ...
... & true sense of Veda had been largely submerged in the ceremonialism & formalism of the close of the Dwapara Yuga, attempted to recover their lost heritage partly by reference to the adepts who still remained in possession of it, partly by the traditions of the great seekers of the past Yuga, Janaka, Yajnavalkya, Krishna and others, partly by their own illuminations and spiritual experience. The Chhandogya... lost, O scourge of thy foes. This is the same ancient Yoga that I have told unto [thee] today, because thou art my lover and my friend; for this is the highest of all the inner truths." The Dwapara Yuga was the age of Kuru preeminence and the Kurus were a great practical, warlike, ritualistic, juristic race of the Roman type, with little of the speculative temper or moral enthusiasm of the eastern... practical, soldierly, commercial bent of mind in comparison with the imaginative and idealistic Eastern races and the scholastic, logical and metaphysical South. According to the Hindu theory of the Yugas, it is in the Dwapara that everything is codified, ritualised, formalised. In the Satya Vishnu descends among men as Yajna. Yajna is the spirit of adoration and sacrifice, and in the Satya yajna reigns ...
... instance, writes: “Lord Vishnu mounted on a white horse, with a drawn scimitar, blazing like a comet will come to end the present Kali Yuga and inaugurate a reign of universal goodness, peace and prosperity, renovate the creation with an era of purity, a Krita Yuga. The four Yugas will then proceed in the same order once again, with similar characteristics, and this process will repeat itself till the final... continuous, eternal succession of the four ages or yugas : Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron, gradually degenerating towards the critical point where all is taken back into its origin ( pralaya ) and then started again in the same order. “Lord Vishnu mounted on a white horse, with a drawn scimitar, blazing like a comet will come to end the present Kali Yuga and inaugurate a reign of universal goodness, peace... peace and prosperity, he will renovate the creation with an era of purity or Krita Yuga. The four yugas will then proceed in the same order once again, with similar characteristics, and this process will repeat itself till the final dissolution or Mahapralaya.” (V. Ashok) 21 Sri Aurobindo accepts the essence of the meaning of the cycles and the cycles as such, but in a progressive way, for “the ...
... Purana, which dates back roughly to the third century A.D., says many other interesting things about our Kali Yuga. For instance: "In the Kali Yuga, kings will not take care of their subjects, and yet they will steal their subjects' possessions on the pretext of collecting taxes ... In the Kali Yuga, the Shudras (the laborers) will demand the same rights as the Brahmins ... people will be haunted by famine... will become almost like Shudras. But notwithstanding all its flaws, the great virtue of the Kali Yuga is that a spiritual progress demanding great ascetic efforts in the age of Satya Yuga (the age of the beginnings or Age of Truth) can be accomplished by man with very little effort in the Kali Yuga." × ... the Mind, we will be as astounded as Gulliver in the land of the Houyhnhnms. Now, Indian writings of some two thousand years ago had precisely foreseen that fall in a fourfold cascade of “ages,” or yugas, which saw, successively, the age of the thinkers or truth-knowers (Brahmins), that of the | knights or warriors (Kshatriyas), that of the merchants or | the middle-class (Vaishyas), and finally our ...
... all the glorious liberties of heaven. 42 The Human Cycle Are the astronomical figures that determine the Yugas in the Hindu mythology to be taken literally? “Too much weight need not be put on the exact figures about the Yugas in the Purana. Here again the Kala and the Yugas indicate successive periods in the cyclic wheel of evolution, – the perfect state, decline and disintegration of successive... The argument of the end of the Kali Yuga already come or coming and a new Satya Yuga coming is a very familiar one and there have been many who have upheld it.” 43 The last sentence may be seen as Sri Aurobindo’s way of confirming the argument. Practically speaking, the important point is the actual, momentous transition from the Kala to the Satya Yuga. It is the fundamental sense of our... they must be so vast in their periods as to escape not only all means of observation, but all our means of deduction or definite inference.” 7 According to the Hindu scriptures, the four Ages or yugas are the Krita or Golden Age, the Treta or Silver Age, the Dwapara or Bronze Age and the Kali or Iron Age. Together they cover the enormous span of 4,310,000 (human) years. (Hindu scripture also ...
... occasion he was telling us that the coming Yuga will be a glorious one, for man will be able to live a far higher life, almost divine, in this world Then Bharati said that if divine life is lived on earth, then we must be immortal also. Yes, he said, we are bound to be so when we work for it." How hard Sri Aurobindo worked—for decades—to usher in the New Yuga. Page 44 ...
... certain eternal types of sound, developed by certain laws of rhythmic variation, perfectly harmonious and symmetrical in its structure and evolution. This is the devabhasha and is spoken in the Satya yuga. Then it suffers change, detrition, collapse. Innumerable languages, dialects, vernaculars are born. The guardians of the sacred language attempt always to bring back the early purity, but even they ...
... world for the great age that is coming. India, she that has carried in herself from of old the secret, can alone lead the way in this great transformation of which the present sandhyā of the old yuga is the forerunner. This must be her mission and service to humanity,—as she discovered the inner spiritual life for the individual, so now to discover for the race its integral collective expression ...
... of an expanding universe out of an original compact mass, the egg may represent that original mass. Page 274 It is said that before this Iron Age (Kali Yuga) there was a Golden Age (Satya Yuga). It is also said that the world is always progressing. How then comes this downward turn (Iron after Gold)? There is no great utility in such theories. It was supposed ...
... Vishwamitra 8 Vyasa 103 W Western Powers 83 White Goddess 77 Wordsworth 16, 39, 97, 98, 99, 101, 102, 103 Y Yama I Yoga 33 Yogis 83 Yuga-sandhi 91 Yves Bonnefoy 76 Z Zeus 4, 32 Page 106 ...
... perception becomes the basis of religion, of philosophy, of social speculation and political aspiration, then will liberty, equality and fraternity take their place in the structure of society and the Satya Yuga return. This is the Asiatic reading of democracy which India must rediscover for herself before she can give it to the world. It is the dharma of every man to be free in soul, bound to service not ...
... unritualistic emotional mode of worship. 3 The age of Kali (or Kali Yuga): According to the Indian tradition, this is the era we live in now. It is the last of the four Yugas, or Ages, which form a cosmic cycle. This fourth Age is a Dark Age, after which a new cycle will start again, with a Golden Age or Satya Yuga. 4. Alwars: Twelve poet Bhaktas of Tamil Nadu, who lived in the second ...
... necessary condition of the yoga, but the liberation and transformation of the human being. It is not personal Ananda, 156 but the bringing down of the divine Ananda—Christ's kingdom of heaven, our Satya-yuga 157 —upon the earth. Of mokṣa 158 we have no personal need; for the soul is nityamukta 159 and bondage is an illusion. We play at being bound, we are not really bound. 160 ...
... 54 man onwards to loftier & more embracing manifestations of our human perfectibility. When in His cosmic circling movement He establishes some stable worldwide harmony, that is man's Satya Yuga. When harmony falters, is maintained with difficulty, not in the nature of men, but by an accepted force or political instrument, that is his Treta. When the faltering becomes stumbling and the harmony... Avatars & great vibhutis coming, arising thickly, treading each close behind the other. Are not these the signs and do they not tell us that the great Avatar of all arrives to establish the first Satya Yuga of the Kali? For in the Kali too, say the secret & ancient traditions of the Yogins, there is a perpetual minor repetition of Satya-Treta-Dwapara-Kali sub-cycles, the subSatya a temporary & imperfect ...
... wave of India's first nationalist resurgence. Again both saw in the year 1914 a momentous period marked by events of epochal importance, one of which was the First World War. For Tagore it was "yuga-sandhi, the dying of the old age of Night to the dawning of a new with its Page 91 blood-red sunrise emerging through the travail of death, sorrow and pain". For Sri Aurobindo it ...
... already manifested themselves, and the first human creature who appears is, in this Kalpa, the Vanara, not the animal Ape, but man with the Ape nature. His satya yuga is the first Paradise, for man Page 1324 begins with the Satya Yuga, begins with a perfected type, not a rudimentary type. The animal forms a perfect type for the human Pashu and then only a Manuputra or Manu, a human, a true... to the importance & difficulty of the stage with which it is concerned. Once at least in each chaturyuga the Manu of the Manvantara incarnates as a man upon earth, but this never happens in the Kali Yuga. The seventh & eighth Manus are the most important in each Prati Kalpa & have the longest reigns, for in their Manvantaras the critical change is finally made from the Page 1325 type which ...
... crest wave of India's first nationalist resurgence. Again both saw in the year 1914 a momentous period marked by events of epochal importance, one of which was the First World War. For Tagore it was "yuga-sandhi, the dying of the old age of Night to the dawning of a new with its blood-red sunrise emerging through the travail of death, sorrow and pain". For Sri Aurobindo it was a cataclysm intended by ...
... humanity which grows in experience by a Page 18 series of expansions and contractions towards its destined self-realisation in God. That evolution is not denied by the Hindu theory of yugas . Each age in the Hindu system has its own line of moral and spiritual evolution and the decline of the dharma or established law of conduct from the Satya to the Kaliyuga is not in reality a det ...
... collectivity and each individual it provides its own specific rhythms that govern their specific and unique development of life. This is what has come to be developed in due course as "sandtana dharma, yuga dharma, rdshtra dharma, kula dharma" , and even swddharma. The profundity and depth of the concept of dharma, which is not religion, but which is a complex principle of guidance that can lead individuals ...
... and great vibhūtis coming, arising thickly, treading each close behind the other. Are not these the signs and do they not tell us that the great Avatar of all arrives to establish the first Satya Yuga of the Kali?" Page 117 Sri Aurobindo and Mrinalini at Nainital ...
... Swabhava, create the body of the Law. The ancient theory supposed that in an entirely right and sound condition of man, individual and collective,—a condition typified by the legendary Golden Age, Satya Yuga, Age of Truth,—there is no need of any political government or State or artificial construction of society, because all then live freely according to the truth of their enlightened self and God-inhabited... life and consciousness. The last and worst state of the society growing out of this increasing artificiality and convention must be a period of anarchy and conflict and dissolution of the dharma,—Kali Yuga,—which must precede through a red-grey evening of cataclysm and struggle a recovery and a new self-expression of the spirit in the human being. The main function of the political sovereign, the king ...
... succeed even partially in that, then I shall know that my hour of success is at hand and that I have got rid of the past Karma in myself and others, which stands in our way and helps the forces of Kali-yuga to baffle our efforts." Almost from the beginning of the Pondicherry days, in letter after letter, Sri Aurobindo spoke about the financial difficulties he was facing. When he wrote to Anandarao ...
... and now, acts and drives, first from above and then in and through the level actuality, and thus speeds and fulfils within a brief span what Nature left to herself would perhaps take aeons— Brahmic Yugas—to accomplish. Indeed Page 12 Nature's evolutionary crises, where she had to effect a transcendence from one plane of creation to another, are always worked out swiftly by such ...
... now, acts and drives, first from above and then in and through the level actuality, and thus speeds up and fulfils within a brief span what Nature left to herself would perhaps take aeons – Brahmic Yugas – to accomplish. Indeed Nature's evolutionary crises, where she had to effect a transcendence from one plane of creation to another, are always worked out swiftly by such a descent which imposes an ...
... destruction of a universe at the end of a cycle. According to Hindu cosmology, the formation of each universe begins with an 'age of truth' ( satya-yuga ) which slowly degenerates, like the stars, till there is no truth left at all; it becomes a 'dark age'( kali-yuga ) like ours, and ends with a cataclysm. Then a new universe is reborn out of this cataclysm and the cycle begins again. There is a correspondence ...
... individual it provides its own specific rhythms that govern Page 450 their specific and unique development of life. This is what has come to be developed in due course as "sanatana dharma, yuga dharma, rashtra dharma, kula dharma", and even swadharma. The profundity and depth of the concept of dharma, which is not religion, but which is a complex principle of guidance that can lead individuals ...
... this Supreme Divine. It is said also that the present epoch marks a crucial turn and transition. We await the Kalki Avatara who will wipe off the past, the Iron Age, and bring in the Golden Age, Satya Yuga. A question inevitably arises here—what next? Once the evolutionary movement has Page 72 reached the apex, does it stop there? After the apex, the Void? It need not be so. The ...
... Sanatana Dharma. "2. On the basis of Vedic knowledge, to establish a Yogic Sadhana which will not only liberate the soul, but prepare a perfect humanity and help in the restoration of the Satya Yuga [the Age of Truth]. That work has to begin now but it will not be complete till the end of the Kali [the Iron Age]. "3. India being the centre, to work for her restoration to her proper place in ...
... massacre, 156 (fn) Japan, 88, 137,202,216, 237 (fn) Japanese, 216, 218 jat, 90 Jews, 190, 242 Jinnah, 223, 224, 230, 241, 245 Judaism, 129 Judea, 137 K Kabir, 146 Kala Purusha , 91 Kali Yuga, 91 KaJi,44, 106, 124 Kalki,148 Karmayogin (English weekly) , 47, 71, 77,83 Kashmir, 228, 245(/n} Kemal , Mustapha , 169(fn), 192 Khaddar, 170 Khilafat movement, 149(fn), 156(fn), 165... 49-50, 5 1, 69 , 93, 94, 145 see also Hinduism Sannyasin, 69 , 106,219 Sanskrit, 12, l00 (fn), 107, 109 , 118, 157 Saraswati (river), 10 1(fn) Satyagraha, Satyagrahi, l SI , 166, 180, 209 Satya Yuga, 91 Sayana, 94 -96, 105, 116 scholarship, in Europe, 12, 80 , 95 -96, 97 (fn), 98(fn), 107 , 115, 116 in India, 12,98(1"), 115-116 science, 49 , 59 , 77 -78 , 80, 110 , 127 , 134 , 135 , 137 ...
... implications of a collective ascent of mankind to a higher than the present mental level of consciousness and a corresponding descent of any higher Truth-Consciousness into humanity. The idea of Satyam Yuga, as it prevails in India, is also a rather vague anticipation of a cyclic reign of Truth and Justice ending the sway of ignorance and falsehood. The idealistic thought of mankind has, indeed, dreamed ...
... different. Life flowed slowly, between banks. These men were different. They never knew what it is to be “bored”. They minded their own business at hand. The future for them was the next day or the next “yuga”. Maybe they looked inward and found many untrod ways. Let us not judge at all. Rather let us, sometimes, light a small lamp in the shadows of the Past and pay homage to the likes of him who preceded ...
... revelation of the secrets of Reality. The vision of the successive loss of a quarter of Reality with the series of the four yugas is an old Indian insight. One version speaks of a cow originally standing on her four legs but with the passing Page 231 of each yuga losing one of them until in the Kali she is precariously poised on a single leg. We may consider the Gita's threefold message... humanity which grows in experience by a series of expansions and contractions towards its destined self-realisation in God". Sri Aurobindo comments: "That evolution is not denied by the Hindu theory of Yugas. Each age in the Hindu system has its own line of moral and spiritual evolution, and the decline of the dharma or established law of conduct from the Satya to the Kaliyuga is not in reality a... You in India take long views and I hope your faith in 'evolution' may be justified; but having reached that section in my bad American translation of the Mahabharata where the last phase of the kali-yuga is described, I wonder if that is not where we are. Would that Kalki, the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus, etc., be at hand. But 'what rough beast/Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?'. Yet how wonderful ...
... implications of a collective ascent of mankind to a higher than the present mental level of consciousness and a corresponding descent of any higher Truth-Consciousness into humanity. The idea of Satya Yuga, as it prevails in India, is also a rather vague anticipation of a cyclic reign of Truth and Justice ending the sway of ignorance and falsehood. The idealistic thought of mankind has, indeed, dreamed ...
... script transmitted directly to the hand. In such a manner did he proceed with old languages. He noted down, or should I say, he took down in dictation (?) what he said was from authors of the Dwapara Yuga. Obscure authors, obscure language, but relating to the epic Ramayana. Not as the epic has come down to us, though. Some mysterious writings in unknown languages have been found in Sri Aurobindo's notebooks ...
... that is his golden age,—a nobler one than the European in which the apparent gold was mostly hard burnished copper with a thin gold-leaf covering it, but still of an alloyed metal, not the true Satya Yuga. In these conventional periods of society there is much indeed that is really fine and sound and helpful to human progress, but still they are its copper age and not the true golden; they are the age ...
... have conjured up the picture of some of you sitting around Nolini after his dinner and before putting him to bed. The talk turns on past births. Somebody asks N who you were in the Ramayana epoch (Yuga). You write: "He did not answer, kept quiet. When pressed again, he replied very softly: 'He was a friend of mine.' " No wonder you were "overjoyed", thinking: "being his friend I was not far away ...
... breaking from the soul's great deeps. (26.6.1987) Some words of yours have put me on the track of what is happening to you. Generally speaking, you are in the transitional passage between one yuga (age) and another, when the past is a disembodied spectre and the future an unembodied ghost. It is important to realise that there are two things. If one feels that everything is just the past grown ...
... the body and in the inner make-up. But the Divine took pity on us and to be with us became himself small and perhaps apparently weak also (Vamana) to be human with us. In other ages, even in the Satya Yuga, the age of Truth, God, the Divine was very far from earth, away and aloof from the material universe (which was Illusion, Maya). Therefore in those days to reach the Divine, to attain nearness to God ...
... some miracle of divine intervention all mankind at once could be raised to this level, we should have something on earth like the Golden Age of the traditions, Satya Yuga, the Age of Truth or true existence. For the sign of the Satya Yuga is that the Law is spontaneous and conscious in each creature and does Page 206 its own works in a perfect harmony and freedom. Unity and universality, ...
... disciple who had sheltered him when he was on the run, Sri Aurobindo spoke of a yogic sadhana that would help in the restoration of the Satya Yuga, the Age of Truth, and He added, That work has to begin now but it will not be complete till the end of the Kali [Yuga]. 17 It is the descending path for the whole world ... right down to the supreme mainspring. We cannot touch one point of Matter without ...
... conjured up the picture of some of you sitting around Nolini after his dinner and before putting him to bed. The talk turns on past births. Somebody asks Nolini who you were in the Ramayana epoch (Yuga). You write: "He did not answer, kept quiet. When pressed again, he replied very softly: 'He was a friend of mine.'" No wonder you were "overjoyed", thinking "being his friend I was not far away ...
... is not suitable either to the periods of highest attainment of humanity or to the eras of its lowest possibility. It is neither the principle of the ideal age, the age of the perfected Truth, satya yuga or kritayuga, in which the human being moves according to some high and profound realisation of the divine possibility, nor of the iron age, the kaliyuga, in which the human being collapses towards ...
... and see God in all things, not things as aught but God. Our fathers did not commit the error of sectarianism or a partial philosophy. They were mighty as Gods or Titans, not like the men of the Kali Yuga who shout and quarrel over their imperfect philosophies and little bounded religions; their souls were spacious enough to take in all truth for their portion. In this Brahman then, on the sure foundation ...
... a battle had been launched. That road had to be closed off to traffic and pedestrians for more than eight hours. It was the worst storm to hit the area in thirty years. Ashramites spoke of the Kali Yuga in connection with the cyclone. As we began our interview Gauri served my favorite drink; “Power Syrup”, made in the Ashram. It is a blend of the essences of hibiscus flowers, rose petals and lemon ...
... so will the spiritual use and perfect the material and the mental existence as the instruments of a divine self-expression. The ages when that is accomplished, are the legendary Satya or Krita 3 Yugas, the ages of the Truth manifested in the symbol, of the great work done when Nature in mankind, illumined, satisfied and blissful, rests in the culmination of her endeavour. It is for man to know ...
... rationalism its hard maturity, is passing away and the bosom of earth and the soul of man heave a sigh of relief at its going, so whatever new civilisation we construct after this evening of the cycle, yuga-sandhyā , on which we are entering,—for those are surely mistaken who think it is already the true dawn,—will also live its time and collapse fiercely or decay dully,—unless indeed there is that eternal ...
... Chronology", The Encyclopaedia Britannica (13th Ed.), XIII "Sālivāhana and the Śaka Era", Journal Of the Royal Asiatic Society, London, 1916. Page 609 "The Kali-yuga era", The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, London, 1911 Frisk, Hjalmar, Le Périplus de la mer Érythrée suivi d'une étude sur la tradition et la langue (Goteberg Hogskole Arsskrift... 161, 162, 169, 174, 188 Gange, 170, 171 Ganges, 64, 116, 456, 'terra gangelis', 174 Ganpatināga, 190 Gardabhilla, 517, 602 Garga, 108 Gārgi-samhitā of Yuga Purāna, 230 Garstang, J., iv 'Garuda-dhvaja', 396 Gauda, 488 Gautamīputra Sātakarni, 22, 54, 225, 286, 469, 470, 472, 476, 519, 521, 571, 572.576, 584, 595 Gayā (and Nālandā) records... Purānakaras, 91 Purānas, 68, 339, 474, 475 Purānic geography, 57-9 Purānic chronology, i-viii, 2-16, 46-57. 102-113, 126-52, 223-8 applied to Buddha's date, 368 Chaturyuga/The Four Yugas, 126-39; Brahma, day and night of, 127; Kalpa (aeon), 127; Dvaparayuga, 49, 139; Kaliyuga, 2, 3, 13, 14-16, 19, 46-49, 98-9, 104, 134, 145, 224; Krita Age, 133, 139, 145; Tretayuga, 139 generation units ...
... along with his dynasty. I lifted Govardhana Hill with My left hand. I chastised the serpent Kāliya. I taught the process of tapasya in Satya-Yuga. I incarnated to teach the process of sacrifice in Treta-yuga. I incarnated in Dvapara-yuga to teach the process of deity worship. Even the Vedas do not know all my incarnations. I have now come to initiate the process of chanting the ...
... dhiyaṁ dadhiṣe would thus mean "I think or meditate the thought." × Observe that in the Puranas the Yugas, moments, months, etc. are all symbolic and it is stated that the body of man is the year. × In the ...
... and balanced, 508; balance upset in later times, 508; organisation of Government, 508; close participation of all the "four orders", 508; three-tier Government, 508; unity of spirit and culture, 509; Yuga Sandhya of a new India, 509; renaissance in India, 509; compared with the Celtic & Japanese, 510; a future for India, 510-1 Fraser, Sir Andrew, 246fn Fry, Christopher, 147 ... 560; jada, vaidyuta, saura Agni, 560-61; fundamental Agni, 561; sadhaks, sadhana, siddhi, 561; suddhi, siddhi, mukti, bhukti, 561; levels of consciousness, 562; Gita's. Yoga, 562; ideal of Satya Yuga, 563; supramental Yoga, 564; multiform & all. inclusive Yoga, 564; the "newness" of the Yoga, 565; faith and knowledge, 566; 4 instruments of Yoga-Siddhi, 567ff; Guru, 567, 572; aspiration, rejection ...
... ...I perceived the Law, The Truth, the Vast, From which we came and which we are; I heard The ages past Whisper their history, and I knew the Word 2 An age of Truth, India's satya yuga , or rather an age of intuition , preceded the history of our mental humanity. Judging by the remnants of our traditions, our infancy in the world was struck with an illumination, as is sometimes our ...
... ages and all the Samskaras put to flame. The Princess's sufferings were therefore poignantly characteristic of the great upheavals that shake up a society on the eve of a coming Era. In it a new Yuga, a new world-order was ushered in. Rishi Markandeya holds the same promise, perhaps even a more splendid promise, in the Savitri-example he prefers to give to Yudhishthira. The Princess... hour and moment of death which Savitri reckons when Satyavan is about to die in the forest. But the year is symbolic and the hour is symbolic. About it Sri Aurobindo tells: "...in the Puranas the Yugas, moments, months etc. are all symbolic and it is stated that the body of man is the year." Therefore abandonment of the body, dehanyāsa , at the end of the year, saṁvatsara , is the abondonment ...
... Never has the earth been so bound and never have they spoken so much of liberty; it is the age of gnomes, it is the reign of anti-life, anti-liberty, anti-fraternity; it is the age of Falsehood, Kali Yuga , the Dark Age. A crow began to caw above the well, I started to slip away elsewhere. But Björn would not let go of me. —And I have looked everywhere: I have looked in Europe, in Oslo, in Paris ...
... inherent in Nature though obscured and held in check by. the perversions of human egoism. For mankind the ultimate aim should be the realisation of the dream of Satya Yuga, an order of divine dispensation: ...the sign of the Satya Yuga is that the Law is spontaneous and conscious in each creature and does its own works in a perfect harmony and freedom. Unity and universality, not separative division ...
... of ages and all the Sanskaras put to flame. The Princess's sufferings were therefore poignantly characteristic of the great upheavals that shake up a society on the eve of a coming Era. In it a new Yuga, a new world-order was ushered in. Rishi Markandeya holds the same promise, perhaps even a more splendid promise, in the Savitri-example he prefers to give to Yudhishthira. The Princess of Madra King... hour and moment of death which Savitri reckons when Satyavan is about to die in the forest. But the year is symbolic and the hour is symbolic. About it Sri Aurobindo tells: "... in the Puranas the Yugas, moments, months etc. are all symbolic and it is stated that the body of man is the year." Therefore abandonment of the body, dehanyāsa, at the end of the year, samvatsara, is the abandonment of ...
... been no true indication of the political mind and genius of the Indian people. But again amid all the mist of confusion there is still the possibility of a new twilight, not of an evening but a morning Yuga-sandhya. India of the ages is not dead nor has she spoken her last creative word; she lives and has still something to do for herself and the human peoples. And that which must seek now to awake is ...
... powerful, and it is disturbing and exhausting, giving intense pleasure and pain in the pursuit but not so vast a bliss in the acquisition. The followers of this path must be like the men of the early yugas, dhīrāḥ , the great word of praise in the Upanishads. In the remembrance, the smṛti or smaraṇa , you must be apramatta , free from negligence. It is by the loss of the smṛti owing to the rush ...
... through the Sanatana Dharma. On the basis of Vedic knowledge, to establish a Yogic Sadhana which will not only liberate the soul, but prepare a perfect humanity and help in the restoration of the Satya Yuga. That work has to begin now but it will not be complete till the end of the Kali. India being the centre, to work for her restoration to her proper place in the world; but this restoration must be ...
... Pelican Original, Harmondsworth, 1966), I, p. 90. 2. Epigraphia Indica, VI, pp. 11, 12. Page 2 This Kaliyuga of 3102 B.C. - held to be the last Age in a series of Four Ages or Yugas - is a major reference-point in the traditional-Purānic chronology. Another such point is the Bhārata War. And the Aihole Inscription carries, along with its reference to the Kaliyuga, the words: "and... Bhārata War. Fleet adds that most probably the astronomer Aryabhata had in mind the same occurrence when he mentioned Bhārata Thursday as the last day of the Age which preceded the "Fourth Yuga" (=the Kali). Fleet quotes Aryabhata's commentator Paramesvara as explicitly connecting Āryabhata's words to this occurrence. Regarded along Fleet's lines, though without his omission of Krishna's... reckoning thus devised was subsequently identified with the Kaliyuga of which the Purānas speak. The identification is first found, though without the actual name, in the astronomer 1. "The Kali-yuga era", The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1911, pp. 476 ff; also Fleet's article "Hindu Chronology" in The Encyclopaedia Britannica (13th Ed), XIII, p. 497. Page 14 Aryabhata ...
... meant slaughter, battle, war; हविः slaying, strife; हु to hurl, fight, shout, call, invoke assistance (cf Grk βοή, βοƞθέω). The sacrificial application is of later origin and belongs to the Dwapara Yuga, the age of sacrifice and ceremonial. Page 492 रत्नधातमम् । रत्न and धा with the superlative termination तम. The word रत्न is the word रत् with the adjectival & nominal suffix न expressing ...
... was originally intended to be an evolution out of ignorance in matter to knowledge through struggle and duality. Thus there was no original divine creation in the image of Heaven, or an original Satya Yuga. It is quite possible that there have been periods of harmony on different levels, not supramental, which were afterwards disturbed—but those could only be a stage or resting place in a world of ...
... of ajnanam, of the forgetfulness of the high and true self. These are not universal or eternal things, but local and temporary, local mainly of this earth, temporary in the brief periods of the Kali yuga. Our business is to bring down heaven on earth for ourselves and mankind, to eliminate sorrow and weakness from the little corners of existence and time, where they are allowed to exist. I do not give ...
... it is to see that in all its glory it is perpetuated from generation to generation. The Law of the Right, ritam , was the ancient Vedic ideal that prevailed in the dynamic Age of the Truth, Satya Yuga, and of it Aswapati was one ardent and devout votary. But then Aswapati's tapasya was not just a part of the fulfilment of this social obligation of his. We must also look into the plausibility ...
... desires, etc., the sacrifice can hardly be joyful to begin with. Pain, struggle, may not be the essential character of the sacrifice, but there is a lot of it in the offering—especially in this Kali Yuga, I should say. It simply means that your sacrifice is still mental and has not yet become spiritual in its character. When your vital being consents to give up its desires and enjoyments, when it ...
... Ancient tradition believed in a golden age of mankind which lay in the splendid infancy of a primeval past; it looked back to some type or symbol of original perfection, Saturnian epoch, Satya Yuga, an age of sincere being and free unity when the sons of heaven were leaders of the human life and mind and the law of God was written, not in ineffective books, but on the tablets of man's heart. Then ...
... as a remedy for my chronic despair and impatience? Sri Aurobindo: Now look here, ... if I can be patient with you and your despairs, why can't you be patient with the forces? ...Now, sir, if my yuga-like persistence could work a miracle ... with such a one [as X], why can't you expect an earlier result with you? Stand and answer. 17 5. DK: O Guru, I send you a Bengali poem of mine entitled ...
... world with a mere flourish of his Yogic wand did indeed disillusion him, it at least indicated clearly enough his future line of action. He would not attempt the establishment of a Golden Age, a Satya Yuga, a New Heaven and a New Earth, all at once; that might prove a fiasco no better than the Trishuncou-Swarga of Vishvamitra's creation. What Sri Aurobindo could do was to convey to others the lights that ...
... perceptive comment from David Frawley alias Vamadeva Shastri: "It seems that the urge to transform the Earth consciousness was stronger in the earlier ages of light. It fell away during the worst of Kali Yuga, when it was enough for a few individuals to gain liberation and the collectivity was too caught in tamas. As we move back towards 33 This early version has been published in Mother India,... and perpetuating the truth-values in the society, in the collective life, he considers this to be necessary. The continuance of the race of the meritorious engaged in sacrifices is an aspect of Satya Yuga, the Age of the Right, and the responsible should not fail in it. Instead Brahma sanctions him, through Savitri, a daughter. The immediate cause of it is not made known to us and we remain greatly puzzled ...
... is his golden age, — a nobler one than the European in which the apparent gold was mostly hard burnished copper with a thin gold-leaf covering it, but still of an alloyed metal, not the true Satya Yuga. In these conventional periods of society Page 253 there is much indeed that is really fine and sound and helpful to human progress, but still they are its copper age and not the true ...
... I hope you are not referring to the whole colossal mass of the Synthesis – though that too may be ready for publication before the next world war (?) or after the beginning of the Satya Yuga (new World Order?). If you mean the Yoga of Works, I am writing or trying to write four or five additional chapters for it. I hope they will be ready in a reasonable time; but my daily time is ...
... wanting, though the seeds have been sown & even the first beginnings made; nor are the Vedic experiences any longer pursued in their entirety by the Indian Yogins who have learned to follow in this Kali Yuga less difficult paths and more modern systems. But the ritualistic interpretation of the Rigveda does not stand on the authority of Sayana alone. It is justified by Shankaracharya’s rigid division ...
... work, as impelled by the Will of the Virat Purusha the Universal Person, on that day the Chariot of Jagannath will come out of the avenues of the world, radiating its light in all directions. Satya Yuga the Age of Truth will descend upon earth; the world of mortal man will become the field for the play of the Divine, the temple-city of God, the metropolis of Ananda. 28 V Sri Aurobindo ...
... the spark hasn't been extinguished, and a new India re-enacting her past glory though in conformity with the exacting conditions of today is not quite an impossibility. Sri Aurobindo saw the morning Yuga-sandhya over fifty years ago, and at the present moment when the twilight is lost in the new dawn, the noon of the future cannot long be denied to our aspirations and strivings. But we might find it ...
... tradition, each cycle has four periods: Satya-yuga , the age of truth (or golden age), followed by the age with "three-fourths of the truth," Treta-yuga , then "half of the truth," Dwapara-yuga , and finally the age when all the truth has disappeared, Kali-yuga , and when the Password has been lost. The Kali-yuga is followed by a new Satya-yuga, but between the two there is a complete disintegration... most ancient tradition in the world, intact. That Sri Aurobindo rediscovered the Secret of the beginning of our human cycle (perhaps there were others before?) in an age the Indians call "black," Kali-yuga , is not without significance. For if it is true that the Rockbottom is contiguous with a new layer, then we must be approaching "something." 295 It would be wrong, however, to identify Sri Aurobindo ...
... About 1965 Mother, According to the old tradition there is a cycle of four ages or Yugas: Satya, Treta, Dwapara and Kali. In "The Yoga and Its Objects" Sri Aurobindo seems to confirm it. I did not find any definite mention in other places. Please tell me whether the Satya Yuga that you are bringing is again to be followed by the other three and the world is to fall into this darkness ...
... innate in every man. In that sense it would of course be true and profound. And I suppose that, given re-incarnation, there also would be 'evolution' throughout history. In that case what is the kali-yuga? It would seem that the clear vision of the Golden Age is progressively darkened to the Iron Age where we now are. But these are mysteries far beyond poetry. But it might seem that from the Vedas and ...
... American translation, and not without reward. In the wonderful section about the Pandavas in the Himalayas I have just read the marvellous meeting of Bhima with Hanuman. And Hanuman's account of the Four Yugas, in each of which one-quarter of the whole of reality is lost. It certainly feels as if we are living only in a quarter of reality. Blake had the same view of course, 'single vision and Newton's sleep' ...
... and great vibhutis coming, arising thickly, treading each close behind the other. Are not these the signs and do they not tell us that the great Avatar of all arrives to establish the first Satya Yuga of the Kali ?... Yes, a new harmony, but not the scrannel pipes of European Page 91 materialism, not an Occidental foundation upon half truths and whole falsehoods. When there ...
... Vyasa's poetical genius and, far more important than either, to a definite understanding of the great ethical gospel which Srikrishna came down on earth to teach as a guide to mankind in the dark Kali yuga then approaching. But I fear that if the inquiry is to be pursued on the lines the writer of this article seemed to hint, if the Society is to rake out 8000 lines from the War Purvas & dub the result ...
... what? I hope you are not referring to the whole colossal mass of the Synthesis ,—though that too may be ready for publication before the next world war (?) or after the beginning of the Satya Yuga (new World Order?). If you mean the Yoga of Works, I am writing or trying to write four or five additional chapters for it. I hope they will be ready in a reasonable time,—but my daily time is short ...
... more, about how to take the first steps on the path. 13 January 1965 Page 311 Sweet Mother, Does Your message for this year announce an Age of Truth—what is called the Satya Yuga in the ancient Scriptures (the Mahabharata)? An age of truth is sure to come before the earth is transformed. 21 January 1965 Sweet Mother, What does this extraordinary Asuric attack ...
... counted from 78 A.D., brings us to 634 A.D. - within the period of Hiuen-Tsang's association with Harsha. Then Pulakesin specifies 3736 years after the Kaliyuga, pointing from 634 A.D. to 3102 B.C., this yuga's traditional date. He also connects the Bhārata War intimately with the Kaliyuga. A word on Hiuen-tsang's chronology of the Guptas will be in Page 604 place here. The defeat ...
... world for the great age that is coming. India, she that has carried in herself from of old the secret, can alone lead the way in this great transformation of which the present sandhyā of the old yuga is the forerunner. This must be her mission and service to humanity, - as she discovered the inner spiritual life for the individual, so now to discover for the race its integral collective expression ...
... becomes the basis of religion, of philosophy, of social speculation and political aspiration, then will liberty, equality and fraternity take their place in the structure of society and the Satya Yuga return. This is the Asiatic reading of democracy which India must rediscover for herself before she can give it to the world.... It has been said that Democracy is based on the rights of man; it... God in the nation, realise God in your brother, realise God in a wide human association.' This is the ideal by which humanity is moved all over the world, the ideal which is the dharma of the Kali Yuga.... For the fiat of God has gone out to the Indian nation, 'Unite, be free, be one, be great'." We make no apology for having quoted rather long extracts from Sri Aurobindo's speech at the Howrah ...
... process? Perhaps the mind may not demand a clear cut answer if it once has the experience that everything is a play of the spirit. Is that so? Or, is there an answer to this? What is the cycle and a Yuga? Sri Aurobindo : There is no time at which it becomes this Page 165 world. These are mental questions and solutions will be mental and many – each equally true. ...
... Pray hear my statement, O Gopas, which is what the sage Garga told me concerning this boy; and let your suspicion about the child melt away. (15) Garga said: Taking diverse forms indeed in each Yuga, this boy has manifested in his body three different colours, viz., white, red and yellow; this time he has assumed a dark complexion. (16) Some time in the past this son of yours was born in the house ...
... of the truth”; and finally ours, the age of the “little men,” the Shudra, the servants (of the machine, of the ego, of desire), the great proletariat of regimented liberties – the “Dark Age,” Kali Yuga, when no truth is left at all. But because this circle is the most extreme, because all the Page 13 truths have been tried and exhausted, and all possible roads explored, we are nearing ...
... sign is there: I have completed the Agenda , volume XIII has flown out of India toward New York for printing. I could complete the task. Whatever happens in the world, the sacred Veda of the Kali Yuga 58 is safe and whole. Now they can destroy me and I laugh. My task is done. And I must say that without you I don't know if I would not have met the same fate as Ludmila. You are my great Companion ...
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